The Critical Need for Effective Leadership in Forensic Laboratories

Forensic science leadership in the United States faces significant challenges, including a lack of resources and a slow-moving organizational culture influenced by law enforcement. Effective forensic leaders must unify diverse laboratory units, identify and retain qualified personnel, and balance the demands of a technology-intensive environment. Essential strategies include setting quantifiable outcomes for quality, benchmarking productivity metrics, and using statistical tools for continuous monitoring. Aligning facilities, technology, human resources, and organizational culture is crucial to high-quality forensic services. Collaboration across disciplines and treating human resources as investments are key to overcoming leadership shortfalls and improving the effectiveness of forensic science in the criminal justice system.

This is a brief summary of:
Becker, W., Dale, W., & Pavur, E. Jr. (2010). Forensic science in transition: Critical leadership challenges. Forensic Science Policy & Management: An International Journal, 1(4), 214–223. https://doi.org/10.1080/19409044.2010.508507

“There is a vacuum of forensic leadership in our nation. Forensic leaders – not regulators – need to address difficult and entrenched laboratory issues.”

The NAS report, Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward, has become a familiar topic in forensic laboratories throughout the United States. Forensic scientists are performing critical work to advance the effectiveness of the criminal justice system, but they are often hampered by a “lack of resources, sound policies, and national support” (National Research Council and Committee on Identifying Needs of the Forensic Sciences Community 2009).

In addition, Becker et al. dive further into the dichotomy of advanced scientific facilities generally operating under the purview of law enforcement agencies. They write, “Many laboratories operate within a law-enforcement command-and-control organizational culture. Police organizations must follow policies defined by court decisions.” There exists an “aversion to risk-taking behavior, and changes in policy and procedure advance slowly.”. They further write, “The mixture of law enforcement personnel with civilian scientific personnel forms a unique organizational culture that can be very stressful for both employees and leaders.”

Forensic laboratories operate like a technology-intensive company, with multiple units utilizing vastly different instruments and methods. In turn, every unit operates with its own subculture. It is the challenge of the forensic leader to unify these different units and operate under a single umbrella of the laboratory as a whole. In effect, “leaders are needed that can clearly articulate a vision and provide a road map for the forensic science community.”

A forensic leader has many challenges to overcome in order to become an effective leader:

• Identification of qualified candidates for key positions

• Retention of key personnel

• Competitive salaries for key disciplines

• Motivating employees

• Generational differences

• Sense of entitlement among employees

• Balancing backlog reduction with supervision of new employees

• Providing incentives for top performers

• Lab succession planning

• Sworn vs. civilian cultural differences

• Command-and-control management vs. collaborative scientific service management

• Having time for scientific research

• Cost cutting/staff reduction when needed

• Workload increases

• Workforce freeze or reduction

• Support for sending lab personnel to training programs, especially those off-site or out of state

• Funding for new technology and systems

• Addressing the problem of less effective employees

• Working with labor representatives

• Using performance appraisals effectively

To summarize and address the challenges of forensic leadership, Becker et al. recommend the following:

1) Leaders must identify common laboratory outcomes for quality, both tangible and intangible, in terms that are quantifiable.

2) Leaders must benchmark metrics for productivity, efficiency, cost, and quality with similar-sized laboratories in scope of services and customer demographics.

3) Leaders must collaborate with similar-sized laboratories to define best practices, comparing metrics for productivity, efficiency, and quality.

4) Leaders must continually monitor these metrics at least monthly (not annually) using statistical analysis tools (e.g. histograms, control charts, Pareto charts) popularized by Deming (2000).

5) Leaders must use cost-benefit analyses and cost-effectiveness analyses as part of the decision tree to solve problems.

Finally, Becker et al. indicate that there are “four main components of a forensic laboratory that must be in alignment to provide high-quality, effective, and efficient forensic service.”

1) Facilities

2) Instrumentation/Information Technologies

3) Human Resources

4) Organizational Culture

Ultimately, forensic laboratories, under the direction of an effective leader, will work collaboratively with all stakeholders (including its employees) to provide the best services that they can to the criminal justice community. Becker et al. note that “the people factor of scientific intellectual capital is an intangible factor and the ultimate key to success.”

The authors suggest that collaborations between science, law, medicine, information technology, and business schools are necessary to select, design, and formulate innovative and relevant curricula to address the shortfalls in forensic leadership and management training in the United States.

“We can do it better, smarter, and cheaper by treating human resources as an investment and not as an expenditure.”